Day: October 13, 2019

Loblaw Companies Ltd. reported a drop in its fourth-quarter profit and said it is prepared for another challenging year in the grocery industry as it readies for increased labour costs and the impact of recently announced drug reform.The retailer, which includes Loblaws and Shoppers Drug Mart, was hit by costs related to the announcement of its PC Optimum loyalty rewards program and the fallout from its admission of participation in an alleged industry-wide, price-fixing conspiracy.The company’s profit available to common shareholders totalled $19 million for the quarter ended Dec. 30, down significantly from a profit of $201 million in the final quarter of 2016.In December, Loblaw and its parent company George Weston Ltd. admitted their participation in what they say is an industry-wide arrangement to co-ordinate the price of bread for at least 14 years. Days later, Loblaw offered customers a $25 gift card as a goodwill gesture.Loblaw recorded a charge of $107 million in relation to the gift card program in the fourth quarter of 2017, and said that it expects the program to be an offset against civil liability. It has previously said it expects the program to cost the company between $75 million and $150 million, with an estimated three million to six million consumers signing up.The company also recorded a $189 million charge related to its merger of the Shoppers Optimum and PC Plus programs this year under the PC Optimum brand. The costs were associated with a higher anticipated redemption rate of points and information technology assets that support the existing loyalty programs.“As we head into 2018, we are facing significant headwinds,” said Loblaw chief financial officer Darren Myers in a conference call with analysts.The company expects a $190 million increase in labour costs this year after minimum wage hikes and a $250 million negative impact to its 2018 operating income from health-care reform, he said.In January, the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance, which represents the provincial, territorial and federal governments, and the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association, announced that they have reached an agreement that will see the prices of nearly 70 commonly prescribed generic drugs discounted by up to 90 per cent of their brand name equivalents.At the time, as the company’s stock was downgraded and some analysts lowered their target price for its shares, Loblaw declined to comment.CEO Galen Weston said on Thursday’s call that the 2018 lump is a lot to take in one year. The average impact of health-care reform for Loblaw has been about $70 million to $80 million over the past three years.“Let’s say we were optimistic that it might be a little bit less, but we were not surprised with where it ended up landing,” he said.The company has taken several steps to help offset these pressures, Myers said.In November, Loblaw announced it would close 22 stores. That same month, the company added a new handling fee that its largest suppliers must pay.Additionally, the company is implementing initiatives to improve processes, lower costs and drive incremental value for customers.However, Myers said, “there’s no silver bullet.”Weston said he expects the underlying business to continue to perform well.On an adjusted basis, Loblaw said earnings available to common shareholders totalled $441 million or $1.13 per share, up from $393 million or 97 cents per share in the fourth quarter of 2016.Analysts had expected an adjusted profit of $1.11 per share, according to Thomson Reuters.Revenue for the 12-week period fell to $11.03 billion compared with $11.13 billion a year earlier due to the sale of the company’s gas bar operations.Food retail same-store sales were up 0.5 per cent, excluding gas bar operations, while drug retail same-store sales increased 3.6 per cent.Follow @AleksSagan on Twitter.Companies in this story: (TSX:L, TSX:WN)read more

Some of the most active companies traded Monday on the Toronto Stock Exchange:Toronto Stock Exchange (16,082.31, up 68.82 points).Aurora Cannabis Inc. (TSX:ACB). Health care. Up $1.44, or 16.9 per cent, to $9.98 on 63.3 million shares.RNC Minerals. (TSX:RNX). Metals. Up 12 cents, or 42.9 per cent, to 40 cents on 25.9 million shares.Aphria Inc. (TSX:APH). Health care. Down three cents, or 0.15 per cent, to $19.52 on 9 million shares.Coro Mining Corp. (TSX:COP). Metals. Down half of a cent, or 8.33 per cent, to 5.5 cents on 7.7 million shares.Coro Mining Corp. Rights. (TSX:COP.RT). Metals. Unchanged at one cent on 6.77 million shares.Bombardier Inc. (TSX:BBD.B). Industrials. Down seven cents, or 1.51 per cent, to $4.57 on 6.3 million shares.Companies reporting major news:Aurora Cannabis Inc. (TSX:ACB) Up $1.44 or 16.9 per cent to $9.98 on 63.3 million shares. The company’s shares surged after a report the marijuana producer was in talks with the Coca-Cola Company to develop pot-infused drinks. Sources told BNN Bloomberg that the world’s largest beverage company is interested in developing drinks that are infused with cannabidiol, the non-psychoactive element in cannabis also known as CBD.read more

WASHINGTON — Thousands of emails were stolen from aides to the National Republican Congressional Committee during the 2018 midterm campaign, a major breach exposing vulnerabilities that have kept cybersecurity experts on edge since the 2016 presidential race.The email accounts were compromised during a series of intrusions that had been spread over several months and discovered in April, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. At least four different party aides had their emails surveilled by hackers, said the person, who was not authorized to discuss the details publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.The committee said an “unknown entity” was behind the hack but provided few other details. A cybersecurity firm and the FBI have been investigating the matter, the committee said. The FBI declined to comment.Politically motivated cyberespionage is commonplace across the world, but Americans have become particularly alert to the possibility of digital interference since Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. The theft of Democrats’ emails is still fresh in the minds of many political operatives and lawmakers, who have stepped up defensive measures but still struggle to protect themselves.Foreign spies routinely try to hack into politicians’ emails to gain insight, ferret out weaknesses and win a diplomatic edge. But hackers often launch sweeping spear-phishing campaigns to gain access to a variety accounts — with no political motivation. With no immediate suspects and few technical details, it’s unclear what the significance of this latest incursion is.In August, the Democratic National Committee thought it had thwarted an attempt to break into its massive voter database — but the effort turned out to be unauthorized test that mimicked what an attack would look like.CrowdStrike, a California-based cybersecurity company, said Tuesday the NRCC asked the company in April to “perform an investigation related to unauthorized access” to the committee’s emails. Before that, the company had been helping the committee protect its internal corporate network, which wasn’t compromised.“The cybersecurity of the committee’s data is paramount, and upon learning of the intrusion, the NRCC immediately launched an internal investigation and notified the FBI, which is now investigating the matter,” the committee said in a statement. The hack was first reported by Politico.Earlier this year, NRCC Chairman Steve Stivers said the committee — which raises money to support Republican candidates for the House — hired multiple cybersecurity staffers to work with its candidates and promised to do more.“We’re starting to advise campaigns, but we’re not ready to roll the whole thing out. We’re working on it,” Stivers said in March. “We’re working on the technology-based stuff to try and make sure that we know what’s out there — which is hard, too — and then we try to defend against it the best we can.”During the 2016 presidential campaign, Russian state-aligned hackers organized the leak of more than 150,000 emails stolen from more than a dozen Democrats. The FBI later said that the Russians had targeted more than 300 people affiliated with the Hillary Clinton campaign and other Democratic institutions over the course of the presidential contest.Special counsel Robert Mueller is now investigating the whether people close to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign had advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans.U.S. officials have expressed concern about foreign interference in U.S. elections. This weekend, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis accused Russia of trying to “muck around” in the November midterm elections. Mattis did not offer specifics and would not elaborate.In October, the Justice Department unsealed criminal charges detailing a yearslong effort by a Russian troll farm to “sow division and discord in the U.S. political system” by creating thousands of false social media profiles and email accounts that appeared to be from people inside the United States. The complaint provided a clear picture that there is still a hidden but powerful Russian social media effort aimed at spreading distrust for American political candidates and causing divisions on social issues such as immigration and gun control.The campaign season saw several examples of digital mischief, although none with the impact of the 2016 hacks.In August, Microsoft alerted the public to attempts by government-backed Russian hackers to target U.S. conservatives’ email by creating fake websites that appeared to belong to a pair of think tanks, the Hudson Institute and International Republican Institute. It also confirmed an attempt similarly attributed to Russian hackers to infiltrate the Senate computer network of Sen. Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat who lost a re-election bid in November.Google later confirmed in September that the personal Gmail accounts of multiple senators and staffers had recently been targeted by foreign hackers, though it did not specify the cyberspies’ nationality nor the party affiliations of the targets.___Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Colleen Long in Washington and Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.Michael Balsamo, The Associated Pressread more

CALGARY — Enbridge Inc. is raising its dividend by 10 per cent for next year.The pipeline and utility company says the increase means it will pay a dividend of $2.95 per share annually, effective in the first quarter of 2019.Based on Enbridge’s closing share price Monday of $42.09, the stock will have an annual yield of about seven per cent.Enbridge also says it anticipates another 10 per cent increase in its dividend for 2020.The increase in its payment to shareholders comes as the company has been restructuring its business this year to focus on its low-risk regulated pipeline and utility operations.Enbridge has sold non-core assets, simplified its structure and reduced its debt. Companies in this story: (TSX:ENB)The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER — Iain Reeve and his wife moved from rental home to rental home in Vancouver but their final solution for secure housing was to move to Ottawa and buy two houses — one for them and another for his parents.He and his wife, Cassandra Sclauzero, are professionals in their mid-30s who wanted to start a family but they couldn’t afford to buy in the city.“We wanted to own a home to have stability, and peace of mind and flexibility,” Reeve said.“The rental market didn’t have stability. We both had settled into pretty good first jobs. But as much as we loved the city and had these connections it wasn’t worth it.”They were “kicked out” of a few places in three years through no fault of their own, he said, adding that it was because people were selling or flipping properties.Reeve grew up and went to university in Vancouver.“I also have parents who live in the Vancouver area who don’t own a home and are working class and not a ton of money saved for retirement, and I’m an only child,” he said. We just couldn’t even get our foot in the door in terms of stable housing.”Reeve said he knows a number of people who are thinking of moving out of the city simply because of the housing market.“Life is challenging enough, it’s so hard when you have (housing) insecurity all the time.”Statistics show that Vancouver, and B.C. generally, is losing skilled workers to other parts of the country.CMHC spokesman Leonard Catling said one of the main reasons people between the ages of 21 and 25 come to Metro Vancouver is for university but they move out as they get older.A December news release from Statistics Canada shows that B.C.’s population crossed the five million mark for the first time because of international migration.However, it lost about 1,200 people to other provinces in the third quarter of 2018 after 21 quarters of gains. Ontario, Alberta and Nova Scotia had the largest gains in population from other provinces.Andy Yan, director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University, said Vancouver is mostly able to attract people early in their careers, whether they come for education or a job, but it has a problem retaining talent.Even if they earn a relatively high wage, he said they can’t afford anything except condominiums.“In a world like that, the labour pool has options,” he said, noting that other provinces offer much more housing for their salaries.Finance Minister Carole James said in an interview “there’s no question that Vancouver is facing a brain drain.”“Crisis is not too strong a word to describe the challenges we are facing, not just in Vancouver, but other urban settings around our province,” she said.In her budget speech last year, she said young professionals are moving out of the province because they can’t find housing.Yan said Vancouver is losing people in certain age groups. Those between 35 and 45 are usually at the apex of their careers and thinking about their first or second child. But they might find themselves still having to share housing if they stay in Vancouver, he said.“It doesn’t become cool when you’re 37 and have a roommate.”In its December report on the housing market, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver pegged the average price of a detached home at a little more than $1 million. An apartment was about $664,100 and an attached home stood at about $809,700.Figures from BC Assessment, the Crown agency that develops and maintains property assessments in the province, show the housing market is moderating with estimated value of some homes in Metro Vancouver dropping about 10 per cent.Nationally, experts have said higher interest rates and a new mortgage stress test have also had an impact on property prices across the country.Yan said despite those changes housing in the Vancouver area remains unaffordable.Kevin Olenick, who is in his mid-40s, moved back to Vancouver earlier this year. He grew up in Calgary and spent about six months in Kamloops.“I’m one of the minority who would say moving back here makes sense,” he said, adding that the creative field he works in provides for more opportunities in Vancouver than in other places.But he said he understands the challenges of living in Vancouver.“You wouldn’t want to move here if you have a family. It’s especially tough to find a home and buy a home,” he said. “I’m renting … but if you’re looking to start a family I can certainly understand why you’re moving out of Vancouver.”B.C. Ministry of Housing spokeswoman Melanie Kilpatrick said the government has announced measures that are helping to cool the real estate market and moderate prices with a 30-point housing plan.Yan said that a study he did in 2018 shows that while home prices in Metro Vancouver were still the highest in Canada, median household income was the lowest. The study also showed that Vancouver remained the least affordable city in the country.Since both ownership and rental is becoming more and more difficult, other problems with the labour force are becoming clearer, he said.James said the government is aware of the problem and working on it.Jas Johal, the jobs critic for the B.C. Liberal party, said the NDP government needs to focus on increasing the supply of housing, not taxes.The NDP government has limited rent increases to 2.5 per cent per year, starting this month. A speculation and vacancy tax was also introduced, aimed at moderating the housing market and creating more homes for renters.But Yan said neither the speculation tax nor the vacancy tax will make much of a difference and if the city continues to lose workers it will lose its competitive edge.“And I think that one of the biggest challenges is that how do you build an economy — one that’s knowledge based — when that population seems to be leaving the city?”read more

The Lutz Creek fire is over 4,000 hectares in size and has already caused the community of Lower Post to be evacuated. According to the B.C. Wildfire Service, the fire is burning out of control and a structural protection unit is up and running in the community.The Federal Government will provide another update on the status of the Alaska Highway at 8 a.m. Wednesday.There are 14 firefighters and one airtanker working the fire. Heavy equipment is being used to help create fire guards.The Lutz Creek #BCwildfire is ~4,000 ha and ~5 km south of Lower Post which is 200 km northeast of Dease Lake and 20 km southeast of Watson Lake, Yukon. Structure protection is set up and operating in that community. Firefighters, heavy equipment and air tankers are responding. https://t.co/VUTqh2FmKt— BC Wildfire Service (@BCGovFireInfo) August 22, 2018A second and larger fire is burning further south of Lower Post. This fire is over 25,000 hectares near the Blue River. UPDATE – As of 3 p.m. August 22 – The Highway is open to single lane alternating traffic with flagger and with pilot car.UPDATE – As of August 22, the Highway remains closed from Coal River to the Yukon Border.FORT NELSON, B.C. – The Alaska Highway is closed between Coal River and the Yukon Border due to a forest fire.read more

It added about 400 U.S. staff with its $350-million acquisition of Oklahoma-focused Tucker Energy Services Holdings, Inc., last spring.Last month, Calgary-based Trican Well Service Ltd. said it had cut 160 jobs in the fourth quarter and, a few weeks later, producer Encana Corp. said it had cut its workforce by 15 percent and ranks of executives by 35 percent after closing its deal to buy U.S. rival Newfield Exploration Co.STEP said the administrative job cuts it made would result in savings of about $4.1 million annually.“Our outlook for Canada remains cautious as recent client budgets underpin a commitment to spend within cash flow,” said STEP CEO Regan Davis on a conference call on Wednesday.“This is evident by a 30 to 35 percent lower rig count in this quarter versus last year.” CALGARY, A.B. – Another Calgary-based oilfield services company is reporting job cuts as activity in Canada slows due to lower oil and gas producer spending.STEP Energy Services Ltd. says it cut 13 percent of its administrative staff in early 2019 and has reduced field staff by 12 percent since Oct. 1.In a regulatory filing last year, the company indicated it had 1,120 employees at the end of 2017, most in Canada.read more

FORT NELSON, B.C. – The RCMP have released a composite sketch of a man they are looking to identify in connection to the double homicide near the Liard Hotsprings.The RCMP have said this person is not a suspect at this time, but someone who they believe could provide more information about the death of Lucas Fowler and Chynna Deese.He is described as: Caucasian, with darker skin and dark hair, he is shorter than Lucas, who is 6’ 3, with a possible beard and/or glasses.The man may be associated with an older model Jeep Cherokee with a black stripe on the hood and a black light/bull bar with small, covered lights. He is believed to have been travelling southbound.If you have information about the person in this sketch, call the RCMP at 1-877-543-4822.The RCMP have also confirmed the two victims were where killed through gun violence and that Lucas Fowler owned the blue van found along the Alaska Highway.9News from Australia interviewed construction worker Alandra Hull saw Fowler and Deese the night before their bodies were found talking to a man and the couple looked “frustrated or something.”In the story shared by 9News, Hull went on to say the bearded man was standing in the middle of the highway and the two victims were next to the van. POLICE NEED HELP identifying this man in connection to dbl homicide of tourists. ⁦@GlobalBC⁩ pic.twitter.com/mx0prAMY3D— Rumina Daya (@rdayaglobal) July 22, 2019The RCMP is also asking the public to share any information they have about either the victims or the man in the composite sketch. If you have any information to share, please call the RCMP at 1-877-543-4822The RCMP have acknowledged there is community concerns with two ongoing homicide investigations in Northern B.C. The Dease Lake incident occurred on July 19, 2019, and the other incident near Liard River Hotsprings occurred between July14-15, 2019, approximately 470 kilometres away.At this time, investigators are sharing information and police would like to ensure awareness around both investigations. The RCMP would ask the public to continue to take any general safety precautions and remain vigilant at this time. We also remind travellers to share your plans with family and friends, establish check-in times and notify someone if your plans change.read more